CBS News Harris-Trump poll takes a closer look at the gender gap as the candidates are undecided

Amid an election-determining gender gap that is now the widest this year, it is already close Presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has become even closer.

But the voting differences between men and women in the 2024 election are not just cross-tabs in a poll report. They reflect different attitudes to larger societal issues such as gender equality in the United States. More directly, they highlight differences in perceptions of candidates, with more women saying only Harris has the necessary cognitive health and more men thinking Trump would be a “strong leader.”

Here is an example. Men are more likely to say there are efforts to promote it in the United States Gender Equality has gone too far lately. If they do, they vote overwhelmingly for it Trump.

Women are more likely to say these efforts haven't gone far enough. Voters who say this are overwhelmingly in favor Harris.

And about this candidate assessment: Women are a full 10 points more likely than men to say that only Kamala Harris has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, and Trump does not.

Men are less likely than women to believe Harris will be a strong leader.

But a significant majority of men believe Trump will be a strong leader.

Among both men and women who believe Harris would be a strong leader, a quarter say this is the case Because she is a woman. For those who think Harris habit When someone is a strong leader, almost one in five say it is at least partly because they are a woman.

All in all, the competition is even – and even tougher. It's tied overall in all battleground states, and Harris is now just +1 in national voter preference. (Harris was at +3 at one point in the battleground in September, and two weeks ago that number narrowed to +1. Trump has gradually erased a 4-point lead that Harris had nationally after the debate.)

In individual CBS estimates from the respective battlefieldsit is also effectively bound. By comparison, in recent history, Democrats have needed a larger national polling lead to imply competitive Electoral College chances in all battlegrounds because so many of their national votes came from larger, safer blue coastal states. But this year, at least so far, we are seeing a different pattern, with the battlefields more closely resembling the national one.

Address the concerns of men and women

Overall, voters say women today face more discrimination than men, and women are particularly likely to say this. But men who believe that men face at least some discrimination (and half of them do) vote for Trump. Women who believe women are discriminated against are overwhelming for Harris.

There is also a gender divide in who believes the campaign is getting attention.

Most men believe Trump is paying proper attention to men's issues, but many think Harris is paying too little attention.

In contrast, women say Harris pays enough attention to women's issues but don't believe Trump does.

A good four out of ten women believe that Trump's campaign pays too much attention to men.

But the percentage of those who say the U.S. is “ready to elect a black woman as president” has risen, and that majority includes people who vote for Harris and many who don't.

Approaches to governance

There is a lot of talk about this in this campaign How The candidates could lead as president, and not just in terms of policy. And we see differences by age and some by gender, but also many by party.

When asked how best to solve America's problems, voters primarily demand cooperation between the parties. Some – often the more ideological – think that one party running the government would be best.

Trump voters are twice as likely as Harris voters to demand “a strong leader who will do what they think is best.”

Younger voters – and younger men in particular – are comparatively more likely to say the country needs this.

Trump continues to win the votes of people who believe that the U.S. political system needs to be completely rebuilt.

The economy – and how it still supports Trump

One potentially good news for Harris is that people say they are judging her more by her own economic plans than the Biden administration's economic record.

She challenged him a bit on the question of who would make people better off financially.

But that lead still remains, and she has failed to cut Trump short among voters who say the economy is an important factor for them.

A large majority continue to say they remember the Trump economy as good, so Harris hasn't made voters revisit or reconsider that memory.

People are divided over whether Trump's policies have helped them financially during the pandemic specifically, and that is reducing the vote.

A few notes on what's changed since Harris got a bigger lead last month:

Perhaps one of the biggest indicators of why this race remains so close: Harris does well when people rank abortion as a top issue, particularly among women who feel this way. And for half of them it's a big issue, but over the course of the campaign they haven't been able to get many more voters to rank it as a top issue. For those who say it is an important factor, it is in the low 50s.

This CBS News/YouGov poll was conducted with a representative sample of 2,161 registered voters nationwide surveyed between October 23 and 25, 2024. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey and prior voting. Respondents were selected to represent registered voters across the country. The margin of error for registered voters is ±2.6 points. Battlegrounds include AZ, GA, MI, NC, NV, PA and WI.